Lake Memphremagog starts at Magog and runs south for some forty kilometres, long and narrow between wooded hills, until it crosses the border and ends in Newport, Vermont. Most of its length lies in Quebec, but the water does not care about borders, and neither does Memphré, the lake monster that local legend has been reporting for more than a century, a long dark shape in the water that has never been photographed convincingly. Magog itself is a town of about fifteen thousand at the northern tip of the lake, with a lakeside promenade, a beach and a lively main street.
The town grew around textile mills in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using the power of the Magog River where it leaves the lake. Today tourism is the main business. Mont Orford National Park, just north, offers ski slopes, lakes and hiking trails. The most remarkable sight, though, is on the west shore of the lake: the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, a sprawling building with a tower rising above the trees, where monks sing Gregorian chant and make excellent cheese and cider sold in the abbey shop. The road down to it is a gentle, curving ride through orchards and forest with glimpses of the lake.
The Eastern Townships are some of the best riding country in Quebec. The roads around Magog roll and twist through hills, farmland and villages settled by Loyalists after the American Revolution, which is why many of the place names are English and the barns look like those in Vermont. Routes along the lakeshore and into the hills have plenty of curves and changes in elevation, with views over the water and the mountains. Surfaces are generally good, though frost heaves and patched sections are common on the minor roads.
Magog has everything: fuel, restaurants, cafes, grocery stores and accommodation. Sherbrooke, the main city of the region, is about twenty-five kilometres east if you need a motorcycle dealer. Summers bring crowds to the lakeside, so weekdays are quieter. Autumn is the best season, when the maples on the hills turn red and orange and the air smells of apples and woodsmoke.